Pop-Tarts Bowl mascots toasted to celebrate BYU’s win (1:13)The Pop-Tarts Bowl mascots are lowered into a giant toaster to become an edible prize for champions BYU. (1:13)
Best Performance by a Game Winner: Hawai’i’s two-headed QB
Best Performance by a Game Loser: Michael Van Buren Jr., LSU
Best Trophy the Coach Didn’t Want: Vrbo Fiesta Bowl
Best Educational Experience: Is this where the dentist lost his tooth?
The ‘Hang It In the Louvre’ Award: Duke WR Que’Sean Brown
The ‘Isn’t This Actually in the Louvre?’ Award: The Beaneater by Annibale Carracci
The ‘Is There Something Opposite of the Louvre We Can Hang This In?’ Award: Holiday Bowl
After five months of college football, the season is down to two teams and one game. But as we wait for Miami and Indiana to meet in their College Football Playoff title throwdown, it is time for our annual lookback on the postseason contests that led up to this one.
Since Dec. 13, when the Cricket Celebration Bowl and Bucked Up LA Bowl kicked off 2,200 miles apart, this great nation has been covered up in bowl games. And those bowl games have been covered up in mayonnaise, eggnog, baked beans and Frosted Flakes.
In the Sheraton Hawai’i Bowl, Rainbow Warriors starting quarterback Micah Alejado threw for 274 yards and three TDs, and rushed for another 33 yards, but suffered a hard hit in the closing seconds of the game with his team trailing Cal 31-28. Backup QB Luke Weaver, who hadn’t played since mid-September, came off the bench and threw a 22-yard TD pass with 10 seconds remaining to win the game 35-31.
The Tigers QB threw for 267 yards and three TDs, and nearly saved the day in the fourth quarter, but the team playing out the pre-Kiffin era string blew an early 14-point lead and lost to Houston 38-35 in the Kinder’s Texas Bowl.
You might remember the Rate Bowl as the Artist Formerly Known as the Copper Bowl, but now you’ll know it as the Game Forever Known as the Golden Gophers’ Last-Second Dagger Bowl.
OK, OK, yes, we know that nothing will supplant the Rose Parade when it comes to rolling street artistry. However, those flower-and-seed covered floats never come close to the Rose Bowl itself. Prince Cheddward rode into the Cheez-It Citrus Bowl atop a smoking dragon slathered entirely in Cheez-Its.
Dude doesn’t just sponsor a game, the Snoop Dogg Arizona Bowl, he broke off the pregame interview of the game with his name because he looked up and saw he was game for making an actual play in the game with his name, fielding a kick in the end zone adorned with, yes, his name.
During the first sunrise of September, on the sacred ground of the Zia Pueblo, Elizabeth and Marcellus Medina’s family gathers clay from the land their family has occupied for centuries, which is used to craft the pot that is awarded to the winner of the New Mexico Bowl every December. It is hand-painted except for one blank space reserved for the name of the winning team, carefully inscribed as soon as the game is over. One part history, one part art and all parts glory.
No matter the name of its game, from Continental Tire and Meineke Car Care to Belk and Duke’s Mayo, Charlotte’s bowl game continues to both electrify and terrify its participants by taking them to Charlotte Motor Speedway for some 180 mph hot laps via the NASCAR Racing Experience.
No doubt Nebraska was bummed to lose the SRS Distribution Las Vegas Bowl to Utah, but at least they were able to get in some great learning opportunities. Isn’t that right, Huskers wideout Dane Key?
Brown did what Arizona State’s Jalen Moss had done earlier, taking a post-TD dive into a giant bowl of Frosted Flakes at the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl, but the image that emerged from Brown’s backward flop was pure art.
After Louisville defeated Toledo in the Bush’s Boca Raton Bowl of Beans, the Cardinals partook of said beans … and legendary social media follow @ArtButSports partook of some art education.
The Trust & Will Holiday Bowl is an underrated classic, from BYU’s 1984 national title game to Kevin from “The Office” slinging eggnog over the coach’s head and onto photographers (which he did on purpose). But this year’s end zone paint jobs were like some sort of wintertime beach Rorschach test.
The Xbox Bowl made its debut this year, played at The Star in Frisco, Texas. If you’re going to be an Xbox game then who else should present the trophy but the hero of THE Xbox game, Master Chief from Halo, who handed over the hardware to Arkansas State and coach Butch Jones. I can’t accurately explain why that juxtaposition is so funny, but you have to admit that it totally is.
As the Roadrunners finished off Florida International in the SERVPRO First Responder Bowl, head coach Jeff Traylor responded by dashing more than 50 yards to try to avoid getting doused in the cold December Dallas air, but the plastic sideline thingy did him in.
As the Black Knights put away UConn in the much-colder New England air of the Wasabi Fenway Bowl, Army head coach Jeff Monken ran a bazillion yards zigzagging like Barry Sanders before a definite should-have-been holding penalty against D-lineman Jack Bousum did the frozen deed.
The ratings were up, the fun was up, and transfer portal be damned, the football was up … especially for those who knew their time together was up, too.
If you don’t like fun, stop reading now. If you don’t love college football, stop reading now. And if you are one of those Ebenezer Scrooge/mall-parking-lot-road-rage Karens who spent their holidays trying to convince the rest of us that bowl games are outdated, stop … well, OK, you probably already stopped reading anyway. And that’s cool with us. Because it’s time for our annual celebration of all that is right with this greatest of sports at a time when so many are so obsessed with what is wrong.
Pop-Tarts Bowl mascots toasted to celebrate BYU’s win (1:13)The Pop-Tarts Bowl mascots are lowered into a giant toaster to become an edible prize for champions BYU. (1:13)
The Pop-Tarts Bowl mascots are lowered into a giant toaster to become an edible prize for champions BYU. (1:13)
MINNESOTA WALKS OFF THE RATE BOWL ON A GAME-WINNING TD 🤯 THE GOLDEN GOPHERS WIN THEIR 9TH-STRAIGHT BOWL GAME 🔥 pic.twitter.com/da2gMvOcwM
THE TRUE PRINCE OF CHEESE HAS RETURNED Prince Cheddward is back on the throne here at the @CitrusBowl pic.twitter.com/5NQECCm0VW
Snoop Dogg jumped out of the interview to catch the kickoff in his OWN bowl game 😂(via @BleacherReport) pic.twitter.com/XClGvEZFGO
A Pop-Tart jumped off the toaster to escape its fate shortly after this. You can’t tell me this sport isn’t perfect. pic.twitter.com/4Jy2RSFDHH
The New Mexico Bowl trophy is so freaking cool. A couple in Zia Pueblo hand crafts a new design every single year. Here’s four of the designs we’ve seen between CSU and UNM the last few days pic.twitter.com/ohzKLWNOlc
This entire sequence is incredible.No notes.Cristobal: “Can we get our players up here instead of all these extra people?”VRBO lady: *Awkward speech that has way too many pauses and it’s clear she doesn’t know ball.*Cristobal: *has zero interest in trophy* Cinema. pic.twitter.com/q9bhWQhAef
Nebraska WR Dane Key may be prepping for a game in Vegas, but the highlight so far? Seeing where The Hangover was filmed!😂 @KETV pic.twitter.com/YX0PTJuPT5
Brand new sentence: Halo presents Arkansas State’s Butch Jones with the @XboxBowl game trophy. pic.twitter.com/gL8Fg45sFG
UTSA forced its coach to take a Gatorade bath after winning the ServPro First Responder Bowl 😂 pic.twitter.com/BK4AxymeQL
Army coach Jeff Monken was juking his team to get out of the Gatorade shower 🤣 pic.twitter.com/pz2TTQdJom
Welcome to the 2025-26 edition of Best of the Bowls.
Miami’s Mario Cristobal, like Kirby Smart and others from the Saban coaching tree, has taken on his mentor’s model of postgame celebration following any win that isn’t a national championship. In his defense, Cristobal’s focus was to get his players on the stage instead of “all these extra people,” but when he was handed the golden football from atop the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl trophy he looked at it like he’d just opened a Christmas present that he thought was going to be a PlayStation but ended up being socks.
Boogity, boogity, boogity 🏎️💨 pic.twitter.com/oRkzlXlQni
East Carolina Pirates! My new favorite team! My kind of logo!(and just got screwed on that bad call!) pic.twitter.com/edng7hTKIx
This is an all-time bowl game picture pic.twitter.com/vHS6wz3Llt
The Beaneater, by Annibale Carracci, 1580s pic.twitter.com/MtqaQvUOX6
💪 POWER 💪 FOOTBALL 💪📺 @CFBONFOX x @SMUFB pic.twitter.com/4qt5SlD25D
Timmy Chang. Loyal to the soil. #BRADDAHHOOD x @CoachTimmyChang pic.twitter.com/9nRmqJpsEy